The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER 2023) by NGO Pratham Foundation was released on Wednesday in New Delhi. The ASER 2023 report titled “Beyond Basics” focuses on the youth aged 14 to 18 years in rural India, an age group that was also the focus of the ASER 2017 report.
According to the official press release, the ASER 2023 report explores the following domains:
(1) What activities are India’s youth currently engaged in?
(2) Do they have basic and applied reading and math abilities?
(3) Do they have access to smartphones? What do they use smartphones for, and can they do simple tasks on their smartphones?
Also Read: ASER 2022 finds sharp drop in children’s reading ability
For the intensive survey, studies in 28 districts across 26 states were carried out which resulted in the interaction with 34,745 youth in the age group 14-18 years.
Except for Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, where two rural districts were surveyed, every other major state had one rural district surveyed for the ASER 2023 report, mentioned the press release.
Among the main observations of the ASER 2023 report, it was found that 86.8% of 14-18-year-olds are enrolled in an educational institution and the percentage of youth not enrolled is 3.9% for 14-year-old youth and is 32.6% for 18-year-olds.
Regarding the foundational skills for the youth in the age group of 14-18, the ASER 2023 report states that about 25% of this age group still cannot read a standard II-level text fluently in their regional language. Across enrollment categories, females (76%) do better than males (70.9%) in reading a Std II level text in their regional language.
Considering the digital access factor for the youth in the age group of 14-18, the ASER 2023 report observes that close to 90% of all youth have a smartphone in the household and know how to use it.
Of those who can use a smartphone, males (43.7%) are more than twice as likely to have their own smartphone than females (19.8%), mentioned the report by Pratham Foundation.
